Not a Drop to Drink

Eighteen

The needle sank into Lucy’s fevered skin, leaving a pucker behind. “She’s dehydrated,” Vera said. “Did she keep anything down?”

Eli shook his head. “I crushed up a few of those aspirin and put them in some water, but she lost it pretty fast.”

“Keep putting fluids in her. Her temp is dropping but it will spike again, even if the antibiotics are working. It takes a steady stream of medicine in her system to start fighting the infection. I can inject her with what I have maybe twice more, but that won’t kill the bacteria on its own. They’ll multiply and we’ll be back in the same situation in a week or two.”

“So we need more antibiotics,” Stebbs said.

Vera nodded and pushed a curl of Lucy’s hair behind her ear. “I’ve heard horror stories of people dying out here from the simplest things; I didn’t want to escape the city only to be killed by a scrape I overlooked one day too many. My own lab had the injectables, so it was easy enough to take some and adjust the inventory. But trying to take more or to take pills from someone else’s lab would’ve been suicide.”

A heavy silence filled the air at Vera’s last word, and she put her hand to her mouth as if to force it back in.

Stebbs cleared his throat and shared a glance with Lynn. “You’ll have to search some houses for the pills she needs.”

Lynn began lacing her boots back up even though she’d just sat down. “I’ll go now.”

“I’m coming with you,” Eli said, dragging his own boots out from under Lucy’s cot.

“You do this sort of thing often?” Vera asked, her composure regained.

“Sometimes,” Lynn said as she shrugged her coat back on. “If we need something we don’t have handy. I haven’t been out scavenging in a long time though, no idea what the nearby houses look like these days.”

“Those men that took me . . . that’s what they were doing—scavenging. They’d go house to house and clear out anything that seemed useful—medicine, blankets, and tools. They had it all stockpiled back at their camp.”

“Why’d they need all that stuff?” Lynn asked blankly.

“They don’t. They’re taking it so that others that do need it have to come to them for it.”

“To trade,” Stebbs finished for her. “Sons of bitches.”

Lynn remembered the traveler on the road, the stranger whose boots had been taken off his feet in order to be stockpiled somewhere. “I won’t trade with them, even for medicine.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Vera said. “You don’t have anything they want. They’re on the stream. It’s flowing well right now from all this melt so they don’t need water. But you’re going to have to drive a long time before you get to a house they haven’t cleaned out.”

Lynn tucked her handgun in her waistband, slung her rifle over her shoulder. “We’ll drive then,” she said. “Surely there’s somewhere they haven’t been.”

The evening was cold and she leaned into Eli as they walked out to the truck. “Did Stebbs tell you?” Lynn asked quietly.

“About Neva? Yeah.”

Lynn rested her head against the steering wheel before starting the engine. “I can’t believe she did that. Eli, I swear I never thought she’d use it for that.”

He touched her cheek. “I know you didn’t. It’s all right.”

“You don’t blame me?”

“No. If that was her decision, she would’ve found a way eventually.”

Lynn squeezed his hand, then started the truck, a weight sliding from her shoulders with the idea that Neva’s face wasn’t among those she should feel guilty for. “I don’t know how far to go. Vera seemed to think those men cleared out a lot of the houses around here. They picked her up to the west, and their camp is somewhere to the south. We’ll go east for about half an hour and start checking houses.”

Eli watched as the fields and woods flashed by. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

“Not while I’m driving.”

“You know what I mean. I was standing there when you threatened them.”

“I will kill them, Eli. Now’s not the time, but I will do it.”

“It won’t bring Neva back.”

“I’m not trying to bring her back. They walked into my place and took something from me, and I let them. They’ll do it again and again, for as long as I have something they want. Leaving them alone guarantees my own destruction.”

“Vera said you don’t have anything they want.”

“Today they wanted Neva. Now she’s gone. They could come back for me or decide they want Vera back. And if they knew Stebbs and Lucy could witch—”

“But they don’t.”

“They’ve tried to take the house before, when Mother was still alive. They want it; they just wanted Neva more. The stream won’t flow well forever, and if their whole purpose is to gather things other people need, they’ll come for my pond eventually.”

“So what are you going to do against a camp full of men? You don’t even know how many there are or where they’re at.”

“Vera will know.”

Eli was quiet for a while as he stared outside at the darkness. “Stebbs won’t like it.”

“Stebbs doesn’t run me. Sounds like you’re the one who doesn’t like it.”

“Damn it, Lynn what do you want me to say? Yes, please attack a bunch of angry men who outnumber you and won’t kill you fast?”

“You say what you like,” Lynn said. “I’m trying this one.” She braked and pulled into a driveway on the left, even though they hadn’t been moving for thirty minutes. She didn’t want to fight with Eli, but she wasn’t caving either.

Lynn hailed the house before walking in. “I don’t want to be shot for a burglar after living this long,” she told Eli. There was no answer and they went through the front door. It was obvious the second that they walked in the men had beat them there. The sofa cushions were tossed on the floor; the stuffed furniture had been slashed.

“Why’d they do that?”

“Looking for valuables people would’ve hidden, I guess,” Eli said.

“Anything truly valuable is in the kitchen.”

“Well, it’s empty,” Eli’s voice echoed off the walls in the next room. Lynn followed him to see cupboard doors hanging open. The drawers had been pulled out and dumped onto the floor. The utensils were gone. A few plastic straws rolled on the floor in the wake of her steps.

“Bathroom,” Lynn said, but it was equally bare, except for a toothbrush in the sink whose bristles were splayed and permanently hardened.

“Shit,” Eli said, looking into a cupboard by the shower. “They took everything. There’s not even a washcloth in here.”

The next house was the same, and the one after that. Lynn’s resolve hardened and their conversation stopped entirely as the night wore on. They were nearly two hours from her house when they found a modest Cape Cod tucked behind a copse of trees that had not been rifled.

“Well,” Eli said when they walked into an immaculate living room. “It makes me feel bad to say this about someone who kept such a clean house, but I hope they had an infectious disease and a well-stocked medicine cabinet.”

They skipped the kitchen and went straight to the bathroom.

“Jackpot,” Eli said when he opened a drawer under the sink. Lynn bent down to see rows of orange prescription bottles lined up carefully, with days of the week marked on the white lids.

“Any antibiotics?”

“I only know the names of a few,” he said, holding a handful of bottles in the beam of Lynn’s flashlight. “Here’s one at least—amoxicillin. The others I can only guess at.”

Lynn dumped her empty backpack at his feet. “We’ll take them all, Vera will know what’s what.” They stripped the drawer bare, and checked the rest of the bathroom. They found Band-Aids, gauze, bandages, plus a first aid kit with sample packages of painkillers inside.

The kitchen yielded plenty of canned food, and Lynn took a new pot, a skillet, two plates, and some utensils as well. “Usually I wouldn’t take so much,” she said, somewhat sheepishly. “But I could use a new pan and I keep expecting Lucy to break one of my plates.”

“Better you than them,” Eli said, and helped her carry their stash out to the truck.

“What do you think?” Lynn put the last bag in the bed of the truck. “Should we try another or head for home?”

“Home,” Eli said.

Lynn nodded in agreement and reached for the driver’s side door. Eli stopped her. “Let me drive, you’re beat.”

She didn’t argue, and her head slipped to the side as they drove south, the heater lulling her into a much-deserved rest. When the truck came to a stop she jerked awake, disoriented by the strip of sun rising. Eli turned off the engine and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. “You awake?” His voice reverberated off the dashboard.

“Yeah.”

“Good. I dropped the medicine off at your place. Right now I need your help.”

“Help?”

Eli nodded and got out of the truck, motioning for her to follow. Neva lay on the ground, the derringer frozen in her palm. Even though Green Hat had done his best to cover her, a hard frost had fallen in the night, closing the wound in her temple and freezing her unseeing eyes open. Eli wordlessly scooped the lifeless body from the ground.

They laid her in the back of the truck gently. Lynn pried the gun loose from her fingers and put it in her own pocket, tucking Neva’s hand under the coat. She rode in the back with Neva as close to the stream as the truck could go, and then took turns with Eli dragging the stiff body back to the grove of ashes. They hacked away at the ground through the morning hours, placing Neva next to her nameless little boy.

“Seems like we spend a lot of time digging graves together,” Eli said, wiping the cold sweat from his brow.

“I don’t think I can do another.”

“She’ll make it.” Eli gathered the exhausted Lynn in his arms. “She’s a strong kid.”

They left the graves, walking hand in hand past the log where Neva had refused to leave her baby, now the sole sentry keeping watch over them both.

Lucy’s fever broke in the river of sweat and vomit that Vera had promised. Stebbs was kept busy running stinking bedclothes out to the cast-iron pot suspended over the fire. Lynn held Lucy in her arms in between bed changes, cradling the blond head in the crook of her elbow and rocking her gently back and forth. As the sun went down, fatigue caught up with her, and Lynn collapsed onto her own cot.

She woke in the dead of night to feel little fingers combing through her hair. “Lynn?” The parched little voice was barely a whisper.

“Hey, little one, what are you doing up? You should be in bed.”

“Thirsty.”

“Okay. You lie down.” Lynn pulled Lucy into her own cot and got to her feet. Eli and Stebbs were slumped together against the stone wall, their heads leaning against each other. Vera was on the floor at the foot of Lucy’s cot, her head resting on the frame. Lynn tiptoed past everyone for Lucy’s cup. She knew she should wake the others and share the relief of Lucy’s recovery, but she wanted the small miracle to herself. Lynn filled the cup with clean water from the pantry, then propped Lucy’s head in her hands while she sipped at it.

“Done,” she said, and fell weakly back onto the pillow. “Can I sleep here with you?”

“Sure.” Lynn slid into bed, and Lucy cuddled against her, the warmth that radiated from her small body no longer carrying the taint of fever.

“You said my mommy was coming. Where is she?”

Lynn rubbed Lucy’s back quietly for a moment. “How much do you remember?”

“Just that you said mommy was coming, and then I didn’t feel so good. I thought I saw mommy, but then when I woke up just now I saw Grandma is here sleeping, so I think maybe I was just confused.”

“No baby, your mommy was here to see you.”

“Is she gone now?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, she’s gone.” Lynn kept rubbing Lucy’s back in concentric circles, trying to lull her back into sleep.

“So Grandma found us?”

“She did and she saved you from your fever. You’re sick, little girl. You’re going to have to take some medicine.”

Lucy stuck out her tongue.

“Eli and I had to drive a long way to get the medicine, so it’s important, all right? I want you to take it and no argument.”

“’Kay,” came the halfhearted reply, followed by a light snoring moments later. Lynn wrapped her long arms around her, muscles tightening in a futile attempt to shield the girl from all dangers.

“I’m going to make sure nothing can hurt you ever again.”